Mobility justice after climate coloniality: mobile commoning as a relational ethics of care

Abstract

This conceptual article argues for linking the concept of mobility justice to an analysis of climate coloniality and then seeks to build on recent feminist, Indigenous and Black studies of climate ethics. More just, equitable, and sustainable futures call for more than decarbonization or low carbon transitions. Situating the climate crisis within deeper political ecologies of colonialism, extractivism, and racial capitalism, the argument centers relational co-becoming, anti-extractivism, and mobile commoning as crucial to climate ethics that are inclusive of Indigenous and Afro-descendent cosmologies, as well as respectful of non-human mobilities and webs of life. Finally, it turns toward feminist, decolonial, Black, and Indigenous relational ontologies of transmotion and mobile commoning as a needed step beyond the existing global mobility regimes and toward the intentional decolonizing of extractive mobilities that have led to the contemporary climate crisis. The conclusion joins others in advocating for an ethics of care and for social science approaches that can coalesce the growing conversations on these issues across North America, Latin America, Australia, Oceania, Africa and beyond.